6/28    What's a good resource for inexpensive, low-to-medium powered laptops?
        (oh and yes I know about eBay and pricewatch)
        \_ ask someone at a huge company if they have any surplus their
        \_ ask someone at a huge company if they have any surplus they're
           getting rid of cheap.  I've been really happy with the 100 dollar
           thinkpad i got surplus from a huge insurance company.
           \_ more detail please?  -- someone was looking at lindows
              \_ Thinkpad 600.  The company was Travelers, via a programmer
                 who works there.  Apparently they were getting rid of lots
                 of computer stuff, and selling laptops for 100 dollars.
                 i don't really know the details, and no, i can't hook you
                 up. sorry.  I think this is typical of companies of that
                 size, and if you ask someone you know who works in computers
                 at someplace like that perhaps they'll connect you.
        \_ How much you willing to pay?

6/28    is there a unix instant messenger client for aol instant messenger
        stuff that supports file transfer?
        \_ I believe gaim now has support.
        \_ I used to use a tcl/tk version of Aim client on Solaris.
           that was years ago.  GAIM has the most active development.
           Have you also tried Everybuddy?    --kngharv

6/28    An interesting article, first posted by a racist half-wit, about
        a British professor's well-intentioned but misguided attempt to
        bring light to human rights abuses in the Israeli-Palestinian
        conflict: http://csua.org/u/3fc
        \_ I doubt it was really posted by a racist half-wit.  it was probably
           a bored troll working overtime who didn't bother to read the text
           but saw an inflamatory-sounding headline somewhere on the net,
           added an even more inflamatory-sounding tagline, and posted it
           to get people riled up.  By changing the tagline, you might have
           ruined their one chance for enterntainment while trapped in their
           cubicle on a sunday.  or maybe it really was a racist half-wit.
        \_ The human rights abuses?  You mean where the palestinians are
           raising their own children to walk into discos, hotels, and pizza
                   \- so stipulating what you write above is true, what
                      do you think it says when "parents are raising their
                      children to walk into discos and blow themselves up"
                      that the palestianian parents dont care about their
                      kids? does it suggest to you that the conditions they
                      are living under and their long terms prospects are
                      just fine? i'm not suggesting suicide bombing is
                      necessarily a justified thing to do even under the
                      circumstances, but it does suggest that the circumstances
                      are not pleasant. i dont buy the "oh anyone can be
                      manipulated into anything" view or that israel has
                      nothing to do with their conditions. --psb
                      \_ psb, I am disappointed... -- ex psb fan
                         \- gee, imagine if said what i really think. --psb
           parlors and blow up themselves and as many civilians as possible?
           Or did you mean the part where the palestinians and most of the
           rest of the arabs world both at the government and street level
           is still unwilling to acknowledge Israel has a right to exist and
           still intends genocide?  Or did you mean the part where others arabs
           such as in Jordan have killed literally 100x as many palestinians
           than Israel has and usually in a mass killing of tens of thousands
           at a time that doesn't get reported in the western press?  Or maybe
           one of the other zillion atrocities committed by arabs on arabs
           over the last several decades?  Help me out, which of these human
           rights abuses was the oxford professor trying to bring light to
           with his very private, very illegal, and very racist email?
                \- you know i suspect this guy made a mistake "putting it
                   in writing" but i think there is a lot of positive
                   selection [in the sense of selecting for certain people
                   rather than selectign against] under the covers ... surely
                   you've seen the romanian/indian/taiwanese/israeli prof
                   with 75% r/i/t/i students. i'm sure there is similar
                   antipathy among indian profs towards pakistani students,
                   probably somethink like that among the chinese, maybe
                   with japanese and korea etc. again this isnt exculpatory
                   but suggests it isnt extraordinary ... except maybe for
                   the jewish crowd suggesting this is unique persecution.
                                                              --psb
        \_ We all know the poor poor palestinians, being the victims,
           are entitled to send their teen children to blow themselves up.
           Its an inalienable natural right, like sodomy.  Forget that the
           the PLO and most of the Arab world were Soviet client states
           for 45 of the past the 55 years, that Yasser is a communist...
           whats the point, people conveniently ignore
           uncomfortable facts.